


The moments we knew would be our last

by kashmir_castiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Destiel - Freeform, Episode: s05e04 The End, Gen, Human Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt No Comfort, M/M, mr edlund id like to have a word with you, this one's sad, wrote this a while ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29113365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kashmir_castiel/pseuds/kashmir_castiel
Summary: The night before the big day and the moments after. Coda for s05e04: The End. Quite sad.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, implied dean winchester/others
Kudos: 15





	The moments we knew would be our last

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a native speaker, so please let me know if there are any mistakes here. I'm also very new to writing, especially writing fics. Hope you enjoy :)

“If that consoles you, I still think you are better than Jenny.”

Dean barked out a laugh at that; a sharp, unpleasant sound, but a laugh nonetheless. Cas supposed it was still better than most of the things that would come out of Dean’s mouth nowadays.

“The bar’s set pretty low,” Dean murmured, his voice raspy, and stretched a little, covering himself with a sheet. His freckled skin looked almost black in comparison with the once-white fabric, now faded due to its age. 

The night was quiet; no lights nor vehicles to interfere the peaceful darkness. The camp was obviously still guarded, but no one would dare to come to Cas’ cabin and disturb him when people knew that Dean was inside, too.

It has been a strange day. The other Dean, the one from the past, flipped everything upside down for most people, no matter how hard _their_ Dean tried to avoid any kind of panic to bloom among his soldiers. Cas was sure that it was that little detail that threw Dean for a loop enough to come to him tonight. Especially that in a few hours they would have to go.

To kill the Devil.

To kill Sam Winchester.

Cas sighed and turned, wrapping his arms around Dean’s middle, trying to calm his raging heart. Drugs were not helping, the effects already wearing off yet still present enough to make him a little bit twitchier. If he knew Dean would come, he wouldn’t take the pills; he would try to experience Dean as sober as possible.

But Dean’s appearance in his cabin has been a surprise. After all, Dean barely even touched him nowadays.

There was a time when they would share the cabin, sometimes even the bed. It was a couple of months after the first Croats started appearing, when the situation still seemed controllable, at least to some degree.

But then things got ugly. Cas started getting high all the time and Dean started getting cold. Impervious even.

Cas didn’t blame him.

Which didn’t mean it hurt less.

Drugs were there to ease the pain. The pain that Cas felt almost constantly, for various reasons. He was human, after all, and being human isn’t even half as fun as it may seem. It wasn’t just the physical pain, the one that he encountered after hunts; broken bones and ragged skin. The worst part, the new, expected, but still surprising part, were emotions. Maybe if he was human during better times, maybe then he’d like it. There was incredible depth to everything, he noticed. Not just feelings but also senses, experiences. All things in the world were different and curious and now he was denied the time to feel them all properly and individually.

He asked Dean about it, once. He asked what will they do after all of this is over.

Dean looked at him then, eyes dead and unmoving and said: “What makes you think there’ll be an ‘after’?”

Cas hasn’t brought up the topic again.

Now, he lied in his bed with all the thoughts floating in his mind and all the emotions slowly drowning his heart.

Dean breathed tiredly into his face. His eyes were closed but he wasn’t asleep; frounces of worry creasing the skin around his lids.

He got older; Cas noticed. It was easy to be aware of that, in the non-physical sense. Dean’s dark eyes, face always stone cold… Cas could still vividly remember what it used to be. But age, physical signs of age, weren’t so obvious. After all, Dean’s face was beautiful, just like the day Cas saw it for the first time.

Now, Dean moved his arms, reluctantly resting one of his palms on Cas’ neck and gripping his fingers with the other.

Cas savored the moment, knowing that times like this didn’t come often.

ᴥᴥᴥ

The fight was a splatter movie. Cas has been introduced to horror films quite some time ago, Dean being the one to make him sit in front of a TV. Castiel was aware that movies of this kind had a habit of ending rather pestiferously.

Cas didn’t know how or why he survived. When he and Dean had left the cabin and the hunter stopped and turned to him, Cas began to surmise what may have been the issue. Dean looked at him for a long time and then came closer. He cradled the ex-angel’s face with his rough, calloused hands and kissed him; something almost sweet and very much rueful. Then he rested his forehead against Cas’ and that was how Cas knew.

Dean didn’t consider them making it out of that fight alive and option.

He was surprisingly okay with that.

Up until now.

Up until he looked around and saw his friends, dead on the ground.

Up until he moved a little further and saw Dean lying in the grass.

It was his Dean, not the one from the past, his face more mature and shaped by their rough reality. 

Cas stood a few steps away, not able to bring himself to move.

Dean’s neck was broken.

A few minutes passed before Cas could see again; red fog not veiling his human eyes anymore. He sat down next to Dean’s unmoving corpse and held him.

He’d seen Dean cry, sometimes, when the hunter couldn’t help it. Dean has always been filled with feelings, bad ones more often than not. Cas always thought that emotions were a dangerous temptation, yet Dean managed to overwhelm Castiel with their strength and sheer beauty. There were good feelings in Dean, too. Love and devotion and undying hope, always painted across Dean’s face, whether he wanted them to be or not. Still, as time passed, those become less and less frequent; tears of joy even rarer than the one brought to Dean’s eyes by sorrow.

Tears were supposed to bring comfort, Cas once heard someone say.

Maybe it doesn’t work like that for angels, he thought for a brief moment. But then again, nothing never seemed to work the way it should with him.

Not quite angel enough and not quite human enough, Cas has always been a misshaped puzzle in the jigsaw that was the universe.

It was only Dean who seemed not to see him as a misfit. Maybe because he was one, too. Or maybe because they would fit perfectly together, making their own little world.

That didn’t matter now. Dean was dead and Cas wasn’t.

The Colt’s shiny metal glimmered in the sun, distinct against the green of the lawn.

Castiel looked at the hunter’s face and made a choice.

Cas reached for the gun, flicked its safety off and put it against his head.

The Colt was supposed to be able to kill everything except five things in all creation. Maybe it would kill a human-angel-hippie hybrid. Cas looked down at his hunter once more.

“See you then, Dean.”

No one alive was close enough to hear the gunshot ring in the air that smelled of gore and defeat.


End file.
